


E Is For Ever After [Although 'Happily' Might Be A Problem]

by mydogwatson



Series: A Baker Street Alphabet [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Funeral, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 02:22:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydogwatson/pseuds/mydogwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is mourning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	E Is For Ever After [Although 'Happily' Might Be A Problem]

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, sorry more angst. But at least it's short! And tomorrow will bring something much, much lighter, I promise. 
> 
> Might be time to remind everyone that this series is alphabetical. but not chronological, so it bounces around in time. Just hang on tightly and everything will be fine. Angsty more often than not, but fine.

There is a weeping in my heart,  
like the rain falling on the city.  
-Paul Verlaine

 

Mycroft turned up at the flat two days later and Mrs. Hudson let him in. John was huddled on the sofa, three untouched cups of tea arrayed on the table in front of him. He did not say anything as Mycroft first started to lower himself into Sherlock’s chair, then, apparently seeing something on John’s face, smoothly shifted to the other one.

“John, I wanted to say---”

“Shut up. Don’t say you’re sorry. Don’t say you didn’t mean for this to happen. Don’t say you understand how I feel. If you say any of those things, I might be forced to kill you where you sit. I was a soldier. I could do that in five different ways before you could summon your lackeys.”

“No doubt. I will not say any of that.”

“Also, feel free to fuck off.”

“There is one thing, John.”

“What?”

Mycroft was looking at the tip of his brolly as he twisted it against the floor. He took a breath. “Arrangements are being made. I wanted to ask if you would give the eulogy for---”

“Don’t say his name,” John snapped. “Never. You don’t deserve that right.”

“Will you give the eulogy? You were his…friend. And I use the singular deliberately.”

John just snarled at Mycroft to get the hell out.

Mycroft left.

Next it was Lestrade, who didn’t even have the balls to show up in person, but only called. John didn’t mean to answer his phone, but for just a split second, he forgot and thought that maybe it was Sherlock calling to summon him to a crime scene. Although he would have texted, of course, not called. John decided that maybe he wasn’t thinking as clearly as he should be.

Lestrade said that he couldn’t speak at the service for obvious reasons.

“Yes,” John said. “Because you betrayed him.”

There was no argument for that. “If not you, who?” Lestrade said.

John told him to piss off.

Mrs. Hudson brought him more tea and, this time, a sandwich. She put both down onto the table and, because she knew, did not even glance at Sherlock’s chair. Instead, she perched on the edge of John’s. “Please, John,” she urged. “Drink the tea. Eat the sandwich.”

He couldn’t eat because everything tasted like ashes in his mouth. Finally he picked up the tea and took one small sip.

Sherlock always liked the tea John made for him the best, although John could never understand why it was better than anyone else’s. The little bit he’d swallowed now turned sour in his stomach.

“John,” Mrs. Hudson said in a soft voice. “Do you want the world to think that no one cared enough about Sherlock to speak about him at his funeral?” Her voice caught, but she seemed determined to get the words out. “Should his death be as lonely as most of his life was? Until you came along?”

John did not even try to hold the tears back; this was Mrs. Hudson, after all. “Tell the bastard brother I’ll do it,” he said harshly.

She got up, came to pat his arm. “You’re such a good boy.”

A moment later she was gone and he was alone. 

It was best he started getting used to that. Again.

John rubbed his face and went to sit at the computer, trying to ignore the ghost with a pale face and darks curls leaning over his shoulder to see what he was going to write.

//I have given eulogies before. A couple of them were for very good friends of mine who died much too soon. One was for an uncle of whom I was very fond. But none of those were as difficult to write as this one. Assuming that I can actually even write it, which is far from a given.  
I should not have to be delivering this one. Sherlock should not be dead. He should not have jumped off that building.  
But he did.  
I don’t know why he felt as if that was his only choice. It wasn’t. I would have helped, no matter the problem. We could have muddled through, as always.  
But---and it hurts to admit this---Sherlock didn’t know that I would always be there for him. I thought he knew.  
Somehow I failed him.  
The cost of that failure lives inside of me, fills me so completely that there is no room for anything else. Honestly, I don’t think there ever will be.  
And that is…fine.  
Probably none of you can understand that. But it is the plain truth. I don’t even want there to be anything else ever again. I don’t deserve it.  
Sherlock was my best friend and those words are completely inadequate.  
He was not a fraud. He was a bloody genius. But most importantly, he was my friend, and I loved him.  
I know what you’re all thinking. That if Sherlock were here right now, he would scoff at me for standing up here talking about sentiment. Emotions.  
And you’d be right, in part. Here, now, Sherlock would smirk and chastise me.  
But, you see, I know him better than any of you.  
If we left here and went home, went to our flat on Baker Street, he would not mock me for my feelings. I would make tea and insist he eat some toast with it. We would sit at that damned table surrounded by whatever experiments he had going. And we would talk.  
He would tell me whatever he had deduced about each of you. I would be amazed. Then he would tell me again about a cottage in Sussex where he would someday raise bees, and we would both know, without it really being said, that we would be there together. Maybe that sounds crazy to you all, but it is the only reality that makes sense to me.   
This does not make sense. We were supposed to get to that place, that future, together.   
That won’t happen now. And it just makes me sad. It makes me heartsick.//

John didn’t even read over what he’d written, but just hit the print button. The words would strip him bare in front of a roomful of people, but he didn’t care.

And, in the end, it didn’t matter, because when he stood beside the impressive oak coffin, under the gaze of more people than he had expected, John found that he could not say the words after all.  
For several long moments, he just stood there, looking out at the faces. “Sherlock was my best friend,” he finally said in a near whisper. “And I will always believe in him. I miss him…I miss him.”

He lifted both hands and rested them against the coffin for a moment. “Good-bye, Sherlock.”

Then he straightened his shoulders and marched out of the room. He didn’t stop until he was all the way back to Baker Street.

fini


End file.
